Tired
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Dean Winchester is a tired man. He's tired of losing people he cares about in ways that could have been prevented. Sure, maybe he couldn't have stopped all of them, but he could have stopped some. If there's one thing Dean has in excess of a list of dead family members, it's guilt and blame. Tag to 13x01


_So I wrote this a little while ago after the premier, but forgot to post it! Things have thankfully turned around a bit for the boys now, but we all know during the premier that wasn't exactly the case. This is just a bit of a scene filler/character study/oneshot/whatever you want to call it, so spoilers obviously. Hope you all enjoy!_

 _Nope, I don't own Supernatural._

* * *

Dean Winchester is tired. Not the sort of 'I've been hunting a wendigo for the past two days in the middle of some…middle of nowhere forest without any sleep' tired. Not the 'I've been at this stupid hospital waiting for my brother to wake up for hours' tired, although that iteration is closer.

No, this sort of tired Dean's really only felt pangs of throughout his life. He supposed it started settling into his bones when he was four, but of course, no four year old would be able to say that they were already tired of…everything.

The first time he voiced it was to Sam in the middle of a med clinic when he thought he was going to lose him too, and that just wouldn't settle.

Mom, dad, countless hunters, he wasn't losing Sam too, not yet, he was too tired of losing people he cared about. And he thought he was tired at twenty-seven? Try at thirty-eight.

The names just kept falling into place, with Sam taking up a few of those. Adam, Lisa, Ben, Benny, Kevin, Charlie, how many of their friends? It just kept going and going and going.

And now there were five more to add to that list, one of which was still lying on the ground next to Dean, charred wings burned into the ground like some sort of grotesque fire.

And Dean finds that he's tired. He's tired of losing people he cares about in ways that could have been prevented. Sure, maybe he couldn't have stopped all of them, but he could have stopped some. If there's one thing Dean has in excess of a list of dead family members, it's guilt and blame.

He sits there on the ground until his legs hurt, but his heart doesn't stop hurting. Everything is just numb…until he remembers that his brother is inside with the spawn of Satan and suddenly he has a purpose again and something he can occupy his time with.

In short, their encounter ends spectacularly, and after they've searched the whole surrounding area of the cabin for Jack, the brothers know there's more pressing matters to deal with first.

Dean goes back in the front of the house and heads upstairs, not wanting to see the imprints of Cas' wings on the ground now that it's daylight.

Instead, he busies himself with yet another task. He has to keep the gears in his head working; they'll figure out some way to fix all of this, they always do, they always do, they always do. He repeats it like a mantra as he gingerly pulls a sheet over Kelly's body.

She's one of the five, but only one of the two that they'll get a chance to…put to rest.

He's not sure how long he stands in the room in the furthest place from the window, but it's when he hears rustling from downstairs that he heads back down, gun at ready.

Half expecting to see Lucifer Jr. mounting an attack, he's surprised to see Sam in the small kitchen, standing a few steps away from the table with his hand covering his mouth. It takes Dean another moment to process Cas' body lying on that table. He'd look peaceful if not for the hole in his chest.

"I…I didn't want him outside, you know, if we're gone a few hours," comes Sam's quiet explanation.

Dean finds it in himself to nod slowly. _Find another task find another task_ his brain repeats because staring at the body of another family member may just shut him down all together.

So instead he goes to the guest bedroom downstairs and unceremoniously pulls off one of the sheets. He brings it back to the table, and, pretending his hands aren't shaking, stretches it over Cas' body.

He too, steps back a bit next to Sam, eyes fixed on the stopped clock on the other side of the room instead of the lumpy sheet in front of him.

"Dean?"

It's a quiet question that could be ended a thousand different ways, and Dean knows he could come up with a thousand different replies to it. He knows what Sam is asking in every single iteration, but he can't think about that right now. He needs a task.

" 'm fine," he says gruffly and casts a glance to his little brother, who looks about as fine as he is.

Dean's not the only one that's tired of losing people, and looking at Sam proves as much. The kid (though he's a grown man now whatever) was never supposed to be exposed to any of this at all. He wasn't supposed to be part of Dean's list of people he's lost over the years.

But Sam's lost someone too, and even though it wasn't a profound bond or whatever the angel used to call it, it was still family. And losing family hurts, they know it all too well.

He spends another moment studying Sam before he claps a half-convincing hand onto his brother's shoulder.

"Lucifer Jr.'s on the loose, we've got a job to do."

That's all it is. It's a job, it's a distraction, it's a purpose, call it what you may, but it's getting them away from the house and away from the rift and away from the past few hours and that's what matters.

They'll fix it, they always do, and so Dean lets his hand fall from Sam's shoulder before he goes outside to the Impala, not even casting a second glance at the sheet on the table.

Why would he need to look again? He's already got the image burned onto the insides of his eyelids, right next to the angel's name on his ever-growing list, and he's just so damn tired of keeping that mental tally.


End file.
